On 27-Sep-09, at 5:56 AM, Les Carr wrote:
[Re] the Compact for Open Access Publishing Equity (COPE)
http://www.oacompact.org/
In these straitened times I wonder if it would be better for the HE
sector to launch "CORE", the "Compact for Open Access Research
Equity", replacing concerns about publishers with concerns about
researchers: "We the undersigned universities recognize the crucial
value of the services provided by scholarly RESEARCHERS, the
desirability of open access to the scholarly literature, and the need
for a stable source of funding for RESEARCHERS...."
Comment:
In my opinion, this is a great idea and fits with my notion of
building on the leadership of COPE to expand the mandate, to include
equity for open access publishers, but more broadly to make a real
commitment to open access, as well as to providing the funding that OA
in all of its flavors needs to thrive.
That is, the mandate could be both to develop and implement green open
access policy, and to commit to responsible transitioning of funding
from subscriptions to open access, including equity for open access
publishers but also support for open access archives (both
institutional and disciplinary) and metasearch services, beginning
with pilot projects as COPE members have done. Given the outstanding
OA institutional policy leadership of COPE members (especially Harvard
and MIT), this strikes me as something worth asking about.
As others have pointed out, flipping all scholarly publishing from
subscriptions to open access quickly is unlikely since academic
library budgets are very tied up in subscriptions. This means that
careful exploration and smaller pilot projects will make more sense in
the short term than wholesale transition. From my perspective, there
are benefits to this approach. While open access policies and
repository developments address the access problem, we can
simultaneously work towards economic support for open access
endeavours, including OA publishing, archives, and free public meta-
search services.
Support for OA publishing benefits green OA. Full open access
publishing is the most compatible approach to filling archives; there
are no barriers, no restrictions, no embargoes.
Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com
Received on Mon Sep 28 2009 - 01:04:30 BST